大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Cleveland on behalf of Robert Hogg, and has been added to this site with his permission. Robert fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥�

The arrival of the Afrika Korps under Rommel had tipped the balance of the Axis forces. We were forced to shorten our supply line and move to a more defensive position. My battalion, 1st Royal Northumberland Fusiliers was a motorised machine gun unit. We were ordered to withdrawal 22.00 hours that night. Platoon Commanders had reported sightings of the enemy armoured cars, obviously on reconnaissance, which suggested an impending attack.

Just behind the company, there was an ordnance dump. Seeing some activity going on there, I went over to see what was happening. There were Royal Engineers who said they were going to blow it up as soon as we had moved out and I could help myself to anything I wanted. I got in a good supply of Navy rum, which was strictly rationed. I gave the CQMS a pint bottle to have on hand during the night.

Jerry made several bombing raids during the night and on hearing his approach, we pulled off the track and dispersed as best we could in the dark. There were troop carriers, gun carriages, armoured vehicles, soft vehicles and ambulances, the lot. It was impossible to keep any ordered formation.

When daylight came, my Company Commander, Major Colin Milward, was standing in his jeep, on the side of the track and when I came up to him, he said 鈥淪ergeant Major some of our trucks are not in order.鈥� I don鈥檛 think he heard my reply or he would have had me Court martial led.

We did get sorted out and continued to move east into Egypt. Incidentally, the CQMS had disposed of all his rum and still seemed stone cold sober.

Then the battalion got orders to form part of a force to set up a defensive position named the 鈥楪erawla Box鈥�. This was a square with the sea to the north and entrenched infantry on the other three sides. This straddled the track. We sighted our guns to give enfilade fire across the front of the infantry.

The object was to delay the enemy as much as possible, force him to divert around us and force him to deploy a considerable force to contain us.

We were under more or less constant fire. Our trenches gave little protection against the airburst shells he used. One of them burst directly over one of our gun positions. I could see there were casualties. When I got out of my trench to go and investigate, the Major shouted, 鈥淐ome back Sergeant Major, Come back you bloody fool鈥�

Three of the lads had been wounded. One of them severely. A shell splinter had taken away his genitals and part of his lower abdomen. He die4d before medical aid arrived.

The pressure on us intensified, and we were getting very short of supplies. It was decided to attempt a break out at night. Jerry threw everything at us at very close range and there were heavy casualties.

Those who did get though, ran on to a minefield. After a time the Commanding Officer Lt. Col. Martin, gave the order to immobilise vehicles, form into small groups and taking whatever personal belongings we could , make our way south for fifty miles then turn east and head for El Alamein.

A young officer suggested we should go together. There was also his batman/driver, my driver and the company Corporal mechanic, Charlie Davies. While still dark we heard vehicles approaching and thought we might be lucky to get a lift. Then Charlie said they sounded like diesel engines whereas ours were all petrol. We took cover behind clumps of shrub or camel thorn. Sure enough, two enemy armoured cars passed close by. Had we been standing we would have been shot or taken prisoners.

Just after dawn we saw a convey of our own trucks passing across our front .We ran after them hoping to get a lift but they thought we were the enemy and opened fire on us. We shouted 鈥淒on鈥檛 shoot we鈥檙e Geordies.鈥� The firing stopped but no vehicle did. However, one seemed to be having engine trouble and was dropping behind the rest. We managed to catch up and clamber aboard.

Once again two enemy armoured cars appeared and came after us. Charlie came to our rescue again as he checked our engine, found and corrected a fault and we gained speed .The enemy cars had spotted some of our trucks nearer to them than us and turned away.

At last we came to a line of telegraph poles running east to west. WE turned east and followed them to El Alamein.

There all of the unit were collected together and taken to Sidi Bishr, just outside Alexandria. Only seventy-eight of my company had made it, out of around one hundred and sixty.

I learnt later that Major Milward was in hospital in Alex, with two severe wounds. He asked for me to visit him with a list of survivors. That was the last time I saw him.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.